I finished Orange Is the New Black last night. I really liked it. It's very different from the show, so if you can read it and not be even remotely spoiled either way.

Aw cool! I am so tempted to read it because I am going crazy waiting for season 2.

I am reading Jared Diamond's Collapse, about what caused past societies to succeed or fail and how current societies are reflecting past patterns and how we can learn from it, etc. I am obsessed with his other works, but this one is reading just like a graduate research paper and not like a book, much more than his others. It feels like homework I don't want to do! It's extremely interesting and I'll definitely learn a lot, but I feel like his editors were like 'Oh it's Diamond, he's fine' and let a lot of style issues go.

I'm reading Searching for Mercy Street written by Anne Sexton's daughter about growing up with her mother. Sexton spells much out in her confessional poetry and I've read the Diane Middlebrook biography so there's nothing too revelatory for me here. Seems kind of exploitative to me, and while this memoir is well written, her daughter the author often feels the need to say things such as how she helped Anne write some prose things as that wasn't her forte, etc. You know, she's gotta toot her own horn in there. Tough to aspire to be a writer when your mother is Anne Sexton. Clearly AS was not a well woman but we already knew that reading her poetry, and in her own words.

I just finished Jewels by Victoria Finlay about the history of gems and the places they're mined. It was mostly about the history and cultural significance, so it didn't get too much into the human exploitation that also goes along with it. Overall I really liked it. She has another book about the history of colors and paints that I want to read now. Plus I have a newfound interest in jewelry and have noticed it more. Not as pretty things but thinking about the commercial history behind it.

I just finished Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill (about growing up in Scientology). Now I'm reading a book by Swedish author Henrik Arnstad about fascist ideology and the history of different fascist movements.

_________________I tend to hook up with people who give me chocolate, but I fail to see how this is a bad thing./tofulish

Star Trek and History - A collection of essays about how Star Trek has both used and influenced history. I had no idea Nichelle Nichols was so involved with NASA and did so much to promote racial and gender diversity in the 70s (which then led Mae Jemison to become the first African-American woman astronaut, who then became the first real astronaut to guest star on Star Trek!).

_________________A pie eating contest is a battle with no losers. - amandabear

I just finished Growing Up X by Ilyasah Shabazz -- it's the autobiography of one of Malcolm X's children, now an adult. I highly recommend it. It's so interesting to read both about her life and about her perspective on her dad, who was killed when she was very young, especially since so much of what's out there about Malcolm X focuses on his political life and the impact of what people thought he believed or wanted was, whereas this book really shows him and his family as regular human beings, even more so than his own autobiography, one might say. It's really cool to watch how she grows up and forms her own identity, and particularly to notice the really important things she illuminates about race and family.

_________________Man, fork the gender card, imma come at you with the whole damned gender deck. - Olives Did you ever think that, like, YOU are a sexy costume FOR a diva cup? - solipsistnationblog!FB!

Marilyn Monroe: The Final Years Quite readable so far and I'm enjoying it. I suspect that the writer will indulge in some conspiracy theories though *eye roll* since they're being hinted at here and there. I'm enjoying the book in a tabloidish, page-turning way.

I'm reading My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel and enjoying it, though admittedly I skim through a lot of the history of medicine stuff and focus on his very well written personal anecdotes that make me feel much less alone in a very obvious yet calming way.

I finished Orange Is the New Black last night. I really liked it. It's very different from the show, so if you can read it and not be even remotely spoiled either way.

Aw cool! I am so tempted to read it because I am going crazy waiting for season 2.

I am reading Jared Diamond's Collapse, about what caused past societies to succeed or fail and how current societies are reflecting past patterns and how we can learn from it, etc. I am obsessed with his other works, but this one is reading just like a graduate research paper and not like a book, much more than his others. It feels like homework I don't want to do! It's extremely interesting and I'll definitely learn a lot, but I feel like his editors were like 'Oh it's Diamond, he's fine' and let a lot of style issues go.

I stared that one ages ago, its lying around somewhere, half-read.

_________________

lepelaar wrote:

The PPK is a mere cooking seminar for flexitarians who believe in the good of man, but might be a good resource for 3d video expertise and ready-made inhumane slaughterhouse timelines.

The Arnstad book was great. I also just finished the autobiography of a Swedish runner who held a lot of world records in the 40's, Gunder Hägg. It was an interesting reminder of how recently it was considered completely normal to not have enough to eat, to share a room with your entire family, and to start earning money at twelve years old... Otherwise it was not a great read imo.

_________________I tend to hook up with people who give me chocolate, but I fail to see how this is a bad thing./tofulish

I'm about halfway through Eating Animals, which is rough but important. Not that I feel that I necessarily need a reminder, but it's a good one nonetheless of why it's so important to eat compassionately. And for lighter reading, I've got the audiobook of The Good Nurse, about Charles Cullen, America's most prolific serial killer! He was an 'angel of death'- an RN who quietly killed dozens of patients via insulin overdoses and other interventions. I do have a bit of a morbid fascination with true crime.

amonik wrote:

I just finished Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill (about growing up in Scientology).

I read that recently, too! It was horrifying/fascinating. I walk by a branch of the Church of Scientology every day and it makes me sick to think about what goes on in there.

And because in addition to a morbid fascination with true crime, I also have a morbid fascination with fringe cults, I also just finished a book written by Rebecca Musser, the former 19th wife of Rulon Jeffs (and former stepmother to Warren Jeffs), prophet of the Fundamentalist LDS church.

I finally finished the Star Trek book. Some of the articles were interesting, but I felt the one about great books kinda missed the mark. The premise was that the Great Books [author's capitalisation] of the 23rd and 24th centuries are the same as our Great Books (e.g., Shakespeare, Dickens, Melville) so they must really be great, pretty much ignoring the fact that the (mostly) white male writers were choosing reading material by white male authors for (mostly) white male characters. I dunno - it just felt like a shallow analysis, though in fairness you'd probably need a book per series to cover all the literary references in Star Trek.

_________________A pie eating contest is a battle with no losers. - amandabear

I chose The Lost City of Z for my book club this month. It's such a fascinating story (search for El Dorado and what happened to the people who got lost in the jungle). The main guy, Percy Fawcett, lived a very interesting life--he took several trips into the amazon, in large parties and solo, and also fought in wwi. He was an English aristocrat who basically bankrupted his family to fund all his explorations. I'm almost finished--so curious about the ending!

I chose The Lost City of Z for my book club this month. It's such a fascinating story (search for El Dorado and what happened to the people who got lost in the jungle). The main guy, Percy Fawcett, lived a very interesting life--he took several trips into the amazon, in large parties and solo, and also fought in wwi. He was an English aristocrat who basically bankrupted his family to fund all his explorations. I'm almost finished--so curious about the ending!

I'm about halfway through Eating Animals, which is rough but important. Not that I feel that I necessarily need a reminder, but it's a good one nonetheless of why it's so important to eat compassionately. And for lighter reading, I've got the audiobook of The Good Nurse, about Charles Cullen, America's most prolific serial killer! He was an 'angel of death'- an RN who quietly killed dozens of patients via insulin overdoses and other interventions. I do have a bit of a morbid fascination with true crime.

amonik wrote:

I just finished Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill (about growing up in Scientology).

I read that recently, too! It was horrifying/fascinating. I walk by a branch of the Church of Scientology every day and it makes me sick to think about what goes on in there.

And because in addition to a morbid fascination with true crime, I also have a morbid fascination with fringe cults, I also just finished a book written by Rebecca Musser, the former 19th wife of Rulon Jeffs (and former stepmother to Warren Jeffs), prophet of the Fundamentalist LDS church.

Was the FLDS book any good? I think I share that fascination.Eating Animals was a significant part of the process when I went vegan.

_________________I tend to hook up with people who give me chocolate, but I fail to see how this is a bad thing./tofulish

And because in addition to a morbid fascination with true crime, I also have a morbid fascination with fringe cults, I also just finished a book written by Rebecca Musser, the former 19th wife of Rulon Jeffs (and former stepmother to Warren Jeffs), prophet of the Fundamentalist LDS church.

Was the FLDS book any good? I think I share that fascination.Eating Animals was a significant part of the process when I went vegan.

It was! I think the ultimate book in terms of FLDS is Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. It's incredible, I've read it at least twice now. It's an examination of the FLDS lifestyle (and other various offshoots/cults of FLDS). It looks through the small lens of one horrific murder that was committed under the 'authority' of a direct revelation from God, while simultaneously laying out a comprehensive general history of the Mormon religion. Musser's book, obviously, is different in that it was written from the perspective of someone who grew up inside the religion and left as an adult (like Miscavige-Hill's book on Scientology and the Sea Org), and therefore has its own unique vantage point to the whole situation. It also covers in greater detail the trials of Warren Jeffs and the whole Texas compound that led to his arrest to begin with, which I think happened entirely after Krakauer's book was published, so it's an interesting epilogue to that sordid mess.

I'm currently reading Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century, about the two teenage Kiwi girls who became so infatuated with each other that, at the threat of separation, they killed one's mother- it's the true crime that was the basis for the movie Heavenly Creatures. I'm also top of the waitlist for the audiobook of The Lost Girls, about the serial murderer of sex workers in Long Island- this one is still unsolved!

I spent the week in my university's archives, reading letters, diaries etc. from Japanese Americans in internment camps. Really depressing topic, but I loved reading a diary written by elementary school children in the Topaz camp--complete with crayon drawings--and seeing how even in such terrible conditions they could still be so full of joy and wonder.